Wednesday, November 9 2005 19:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Geneva: The WTO talks ran into rough weather, as discussions among key players to break the impasse remained inconclusive with India making it clear that the July framework was not up for re-negotiation.

"July framework which has set the principles and guidelines for the ongoing Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO is not up for re-negotiation," Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said at a meeting here.

"There is no question of it being reopened as it was addressed in a large measure of the development issues which concern developing countries," he added.

The discussions in Geneva, in which nearly 20 trade ministers from various countries participated ended inconclusively with wide divergences in various areas of negotiations including non-agricultural market access.

Intervening in the discussions at the meeting called to break the deadlock, Nath said the forthcoming ministerial conference of WTO would be judged solely by how far it meets the development objectives of Doha round.

Emphasising that the level of ambition in the talks meant different things to different countries and in India agriculture meant survival, Nath said, "In most of the developing countries when the farmers were dependent of subsistence agriculture for their food and livelihood security, the real issue is how that can increase their daily income from just one to two dollars per day.